Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 1170
As is the way of things, I lost most of today to travel. At least it wasn't particularly stressful - it just ate up a lot of time. The bag drop took a bit longer than I thought it would and the ground staff wasn't necessarily pleasant - but not rude either. Philippine Immigration was a bit terse today but of course, there's no calling their officers out. It was also the first time I had dealt with the eTravel requirement for departing the Philippines and it felt a little anticlimactic given the officer only confirmed that I had done it but didn't actually scan the QR code generated by the platform.
It has been a while since I had last flown out via Terminal 1 and it does look better (or at least cleaner) than it used to. I was most surprised by the Subway outlet near the Starbucks, but beyond that, it was more of the same. At least the bathrooms feel better maintained than before.
Our flight was delayed a bit, although as usual there were no clear announcements beforehand. I later found out that our plane had arrived late - but this was because another person cornered a member of the flight crew to ask what was going on. To be fair, I had been bracing for today with flight delays expected given the weather forecast. So it's sort of a blessing that our delays for today was just some delays and we actually had a nice clear sky for the duration of the flight.
Despite leaving Manila more than 30 minutes past our scheduled departure time, we actually landed within 15 minutes of our original schedule, so that was rather impressive. I had no issues with the electronic immigration gates in Singapore (unlike last time) and so I was already waiting for my bag way before the carousel even began to move. If only my bag had come out sooner, things would have been absolutely perfect. But don't get me wrong - I'm just glad my bag didn't get lost as is still randomly the case for people.
The whole family showed up at the airport, which was a pleasant surprise. My nephews at least recognize me with varying degrees of response, but that'll get even better the longer I'm in town. Unfortunately, we're going to be quite busy for most of this week given I flew in for a conference, so I'll just have to make up for lost time with the boys on come the weekend.
Still, it has been a good day. Here's to a fun yet productive trip ahead!
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